


Falling Asleep on your Shoulder

by Persiflage



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Disabled Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Falling Asleep on Someone, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Missions, POV Phil Coulson, Pre-s3, Romance, Skye Taking Care of Coulson, Skye's Huge Crush on Phil Coulson, Stakeout, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 05:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5322179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/pseuds/Persiflage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye falls asleep on Phil's shoulder. He doesn't mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Asleep on your Shoulder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RowboatCop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/gifts), [zauberer_sirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/gifts), [BrilliantlyHorrid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrilliantlyHorrid/gifts), [Skyepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/gifts), [notcaycepollard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/gifts).



> Written for the Impromptu Skoulson Fluff ficathon on Tumblr, for the prompt: Someone falls asleep on the other during stakeout. It's set pre-S3, before Skye changes her name.

It's not until Skye's head comes to rest against his shoulder that Coulson realises she's fallen asleep on him. He's not hugely surprised – stakeouts are boring for the most part, and he knows how hard she's been working this summer, trying desperately to get on top of Project Caterpillars, and trying to get to the bottom of the sudden outbreak of Inhumans. So he doesn't wake her up yet, figuring she needs the rest. Instead, he slips his arm around her, and tries very hard not to enjoy the feeling of snuggling up with Skye. He makes himself focus on the monitors in front of him, watching for any sign of disturbance in the area – two Inhumans have emerged in this neighbourhood in the last two months, and neither he nor Skye can tell whether it's a coincidence or part of a pattern.

A couple of hours pass, and Coulson's starting to feel a bit sleepy himself when he sees movement on one of the monitors.

"Skye, wake up!" he says urgently, squeezing her arm.

"Nnghh. Five more minutes," she mutters, and Coulson has to push her upright before she opens her eyes. "What?" 

"We've got movement," he tells her, ignoring, as best he can, the sexy rasp her sleep-laden voice has acquired.

"Shit!" She scrubs a hand over her face. "Why did you let me sleep, Phil?" she demands as she quickly turns her attention to the monitors.

He wonders if he'll ever stop getting a thrill from hearing her say his name, even as he answers her, "You've been working like crazy these last three months, and I know you haven't been getting enough sleep even if you've been telling me otherwise."

Skye's hands are flying over the keyboard of her laptop as he speaks, and he watches, always as fascinated by her computer skills as much as he's mesmerised by her powers. 

"Okay, time to see what's what," she says, and pulls out a box from which she takes one of Fitz's DWARFs. 

"Isn't that the new prototype?" Coulson asks. "I'm surprised Fitz let you bring it."

"He might not know I did," she tells him, casting him a sheepish glance, before opening up the tablet that controls the DWARF. 

Coulson can't help spluttering a bit in surprise. "Skye – " he begins.

"Don't worry, Phil," she says. "I'll bring it back in one piece. Fitz'll never even know I borrowed it." The little gadget soars out of the open window of the van, and Skye taps on the tablet to activate the DWARF's camera. "Especially when he's never here." 

The last is a low-voiced mutter, and Coulson bites his tongue to stop himself from answering. He knows Skye misses Simmons, they all do, and he also knows that she knows that Fitz is desperate to track down some sort of clue to getting Simmons back, but at the same time he is well aware that Skye's doing more than her share of work at the base and on missions because they're so short-handed, especially since May hasn't come back from her vacation (although Andrew's returned), and Bobbi's still recovering from her latest knee surgery. Hence she's falling asleep on him during a stakeout.

The little quad-copter zooms across the street, and Coulson leans in closer to Skye to peer at the monitor. "Is that – ?" he begins, then nearly jumps off the bench when she grips his thigh. He glances at her, and realises that she might not even be aware of what she's doing because she's excited by what they're seeing, and what they're seeing is three men in military gear, all of them armed, approaching a house further down the street from them.

"Any idea who these people are?" Skye asks, lifting her hand from his leg to begin tapping at the controls for the DWARF. Coulson tries not to miss her touch, the warmth of her hand on his leg, which he could feel even through the denim of his jeans.

"No," he answers, staring intently at the screen. "We're not going to engage, just observe."

"Yeah, yeah, Phil, I know." 

He swallows, realising he's not being fair, talking to her as if she's a rookie when she's not. Skye knows what she's doing, knows the importance of surveillance at this juncture. 

"I'm going to assign Mack to be your field partner for the next op," he tells her.

She looks up from the screen, startled, and clearly a bit hurt too. "Did I – " She swallows. "Did I do something wrong, sir?"

He curls his fingers over her wrist. "No, Skye, of course not. It's just that I've got the first fitting for my prosthetic in a couple of days, and I won't be able to come out on the field with you until they're sure the thing's taken properly. I don't want to leave you without a field partner."

"You didn't tell me that was happening this week," she says, and he can tell she's a bit hurt by that, too.

He shakes his head. "I didn't want to think about it," he admits, ducking his head at the soft look she's giving him.

"Phil, it's okay," she says, her voice gentle. "It'll be okay, you'll see."

"Maybe," he says. "I – " He breaks off, shrugging lamely. He's not sure how to put his feelings into words – it's all so complicated: the way he's fairly sure that Skye blames herself for not stopping her mother sooner, which allowed Jiaying to put her plan in motion, which led to him losing half an arm in an attempt to save those on the Iliad; the fact that he feels he should've done more to help Skye deal with losing her parents all over again after finding them – and especially the fact that he didn't find a solution for Cal that didn't involve wiping his mind to make him forget about his beloved daughter.

Skye lifts her other hand and places her palm over his sling. "It's okay," she tells him. "You don't have to talk about it."

To his surprise she leans in and kisses his cheek, then turns her attention back to the task at hand. Once he's sure she's fully engaged in what she's doing he lifts his hand and touches his fingertips to the spot on his cheek where her lips pressed against his skin – he knows that spot's not still warm, but it seems to be tingling. 

"I can't get a good look at any of these guys' faces," she tells him, breaking him out of his daze. He's grateful that her attention's still on the tablet in her hand and the monitor in front of her.

"Maybe when they come back out," he says.

"Maybe." She sounds frustrated. "Fitz needs to get some cloaking tech in this thing – then I could fly it closer and not have to worry about it being spotted."

She balls her hands into fists, and he reaches out to rub his hand lightly over the middle of her back. "It's okay, Skye," he says gently. 

"Yeah," she says, and takes a deep breath that he can feel; he can also feel how it settles her, and he withdraws his hand, not wanting to intrude. She tosses a smile his way. "Thanks, Phil."

He nods, takes a deeper breath of his own, then settles himself in his turn: she doesn't need him to distract her, now or ever.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

A couple of days later, Coulson comes to after the surgery on his arm to a strange warmth and weight on his right arm and chest. It takes a few moments before he's able to get his eyes open, and when he does, it's to find Skye's arm draped over his chest, and her head resting on his arm. "Skye?" he whispers.

"Ugh, no, five more minutes," she mutters, and he's reminded of that stakeout the other day.

He can't help chuckling, and that seems to get her attention because she lifts her head, her warm brown eyes staring into his blue ones with a bit of a blank expression until she realises where they are.

"God, Phil, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep on you." She straightens up slowly, and he misses her warmth, her weight, on him when she moves.

"It's okay," he says. "I don't mind, honestly." He really doesn't – it's rather nice, in fact, to wake up in such a way, and he tries not to think about how much he'd like to always wake up to Skye's warmth. "How long have you been there?"

She glances up at the clock on the wall and he sees that it's late enough in the afternoon to be called early evening. "A couple of hours, maybe." 

He lifts his right hand to smooth her hair flat on the side where she'd had her head laid against him. When he brings his hand down to cup her cheek afterwards she lifts her left hand and presses it against the back of his hand, and he's reminded of that moment in the theatre in San Juan, when her father had tried to beat him to death. Then she turns her head just enough to press her lips to his palm, and he feels his eyes sting at the gesture.

"Skye." He can hear the crack in his voice, and he knows she can too. He opens his mouth to apologise, but she reaches over with her right hand and places a finger over his lips.

"It's okay, Phil." She looks down at his left arm, which is lying beside him on the hospital bed. "How is it?"

He looks down, frowns, then lifts his arm: it feels leaden, and clumsy, and part of him doesn't want her to see it, wants to hide it somewhere out of sight, but this is Skye – she's not the sort of person to judge someone because they're not whole (this is Skye, who continued to care about Mike Peterson even after he'd been turned into Deathlock).

"It feels really heavy," he tells her, "which makes no sense, because it's actually not."

"Yeah, it makes sense," she says in a quiet voice. "You're not used to having the weight of it there after so many weeks with a stump."

He swallows hard, touched that she could so easily make sense of the situation and explain it to him, and his eyes are now stinging worse than before.

"Oh Phil." She whispers his name, then the next moment she's climbing up onto the bed beside him, which sort of startles him, but when she settles on her side next to him and wraps her arm across his chest, her hand gripping his shoulder, he feels such gratitude that he can't help crying for real. She insinuates her left arm under his shoulder and holds him tightly, yet so carefully, and that just makes him weep even more.

Eventually his tears subside, and she lets go of his left shoulder long enough to dig into the pocket of her jeans and find him a tissue. Then she seems to realise he might not yet have the motor skills to use his left hand, so she sits up and dries his face for him.

"Sorry," he mutters, feeling ashamed that she's having to deal with a grown man, and her boss at that, crying like a child.

"Don't be," she says immediately. "You've been through a really traumatic experience, you're _allowed_ to be upset." She cups his cheek in her hand. "Andrew would doubtless tell you it's a good thing to cry – a healthy response or something."

He gives her a weak smile at the expression on her face when she mentions Dr Garner – he knows quite well that despite herself, she likes the psychiatrist.

"Thank you."

She leans down and presses a kiss to his temple, then slips down off the bed, just as the door of his room begins to open, and by the time the nurse is inside his room, she's sitting demurely on the chair alongside the bed, her left hand resting on his upper arm, and the fingers of her right hand curled around his right hand.

"How are you feeling?" asks the nurse, and Coulson is relieved to be able to answer her without his voice cracking.

She seems satisfied with him and promises that someone will be bringing him some dinner soon, then she goes out.

"You should eat too," he tells Skye once the nurse is gone.

"I've got a sandwich in my bag," she tells him. "Mack insisted on packing one for me." He nods. "I've also got some of your coffee, if you want it?"

He swallows hard. "You have?"

She smirks at him, nods, then bends down and lifts a large travel cup into his line of sight. He flexes his fingers half-consciously as she takes off the top, and she laughs softly, curling her fingers inside his for a moment, before putting the travel cup in his hand. She slips her left arm beneath his shoulders and gets him to sit up, then stuffs the pillows in behind him.

"Don't drink it too fast," she warns.

He nods, then takes a careful mouthful, biting back a moan when the hot liquid slides down his throat.

"Good, uh?" she asks, her tone teasing, as he swallows a second mouthful.

"So good," he agrees. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, Phil."

Shortly afterwards an orderly comes by with a tray of food and once he's gone, Skye pulls out her sandwich, and another travel mug, and they eat in companionable silence. 

"Thank you for being here today," he tells her when they've finished their meal. "It means a lot to me."

"Well, you watched over me when I was stuck in quarantine," she says, "so, you know, just returning the favour."

He reaches out for her and she immediately grabs his hand in her left, then nods at the other one, his new prosthetic hand. "Let's have a look at it, shall we?"

The suggestion is gentle, and he can tell that if he were to refuse, she'd accept his refusal without judging him for it. Perversely that makes him lift his arm and stretch it, albeit a bit awkwardly, across to her. She immediately grabs it in her right hand, and while he can't really feel his hand in hers, he can see the careful way she's touching it, and that somehow makes it seem a bit less like a lump attached to his arm, and an actual part of him.

"I guess you'll have a lot of exercises to do with it," she observes.

"Yeah." He can't help sighing a bit at the prospect.

"If you need any help," she says, a little hesitantly, as if she somehow still thinks she shouldn't put herself forward, "you can ask me." She curls her hand around his wrist. "I know I'm not May or Bobbi, but with them both off the scene, so to speak, I could train with you, perhaps?"

"I'd like that," he says immediately, eliciting a little smile of satisfaction. He tries not to think too much about the dangers inherent in sparring with Skye. He can't refuse her offer without making her feel she's not good enough, and he knows that's not true.

"I should leave you to get some rest," she says. "I'll be outside, though, if you want me."

He swallows down his first response ('I always want you'), then nods, trying to keep his face in check. He guesses he's failed miserably at that when she says, "Or I can stay here, if you'd prefer."

He shakes his head, abruptly feeling selfish. "You don't have to babysit me, Skye."

"I don't consider it babysitting," she tells him in a light tone. "It's giving my friend the support he needs at a rough time." She squeezes both his hands. "And let me remind you, again, of the way you supported me after San Juan – you sat outside that quarantine cell for hours at a time."

He swallows hard, then whispers, "I'd like you to stay."

"Then I will." She lets go of his hands, then bends down, and he peers over the side of the bed to see she's taking off her boots. "Budge up, Phil." 

He obeys, startled, yet pleased, when she climbs onto the bed next to him again, then makes herself comfortable with her head resting on his right shoulder (and his right arm around her), and her right arm stretched across his chest, while she slides her left under his body.

"It's okay, Phil, I've got you. Now go to sleep."

He sighs softly, presses his lips to her hair, then allows his eyes to close. He feels comfortable, and safe, and most importantly of all, loved. It's a good feeling, he thinks, even as sleep begins to steal over him.


End file.
